“Over the past week I have been reading the book by William Watts, A Memoir, which is the first autobiography by any Provost of Trinity College Dublin. Bill Watts led the College between 1981 and 1991, and for much of that time I was myself a rather bolshy junior lecturer there. The book describes his life and his tenure of the office of Provost, and it contains some interesting observations about the nature of university life and decision-making. However, one of the curiosities of the book is that nowhere does Watts explain what the role of the Provost really is …” (more)